Monday, March 28, 2011

I will be traveling for the next week with only intermittent internet access.

Apologies for the interruption in service. The Newsletters will resume on April 6.

As always, your comments and ideas are welcome at any time.

The article in the url below reports on the recent court decision in Ecuador where Chevron was found guilty of pollution/environmental degradation and ordered to pay $8.6bn in fines and clean-up costs (possibly rising to over $9bn):

“The plaintiffs, residents of Ecuador's oil-rich Amazon rain forest, are seeking to hold Chevron accountable for environmental damage they say was caused by Texaco Inc., which operated in the country from 1965 to 1992. Chevron inherited the case when it acquired Texaco in 2001.”

The case is complex and, perhaps unsurprisingly, Chevron denies any wrongdoing or liability. What I thought was interesting about the decision, however, was the following:

“And if the U.S. oil giant doesn't publicly apologize in the next 15 days, the judge ordered the company to pay twice that amount.”

The intimacy of a public apology (and implied admission of guilt), together with the legal consequences of refusing to comply, was an interesting twist to the story. The judge seemed to be trying to make the legal transaction more human and personal. In the process, he is holding the firm to a level of accountability that exceeds the monetary value of the fine.

It is always interesting (depressing?) to see the reaction of the stock market to these kinds of decisions”

“Investors … shrugged off the ruling Monday. Chevron's shares rose 1.3% to $96.95 in 4 p.m. composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange.”